Unfinished work in progress: construction works.
Incomplete notes and ideas: this blog post.
Artwork missing credits: on the right.
Construction Site Aesthetics
Notes for a blog post: Construction site clichés put to the reality check: Why always so loud so early in the morning? Are construction site aesthetics the real contemporary urban art? If a construction site was an art installation, who would be its artists? The architects? The workers? The city? Time?
Visual and Acoustic Observations
Why this post? And why now?
Well, everyone, at least in Berlin, seems to have an ongoing or unfinished construction site in their neighborhood, or on their way home on the railroad tracks or on the motorway.
Getting Tired at my Desktop
Well, my blog started as a “note-blog”, a pun that sounds similar to “notepad” or “sketchbook” in German. I used to note and publish short, incoherent and experimental scribbles, mostly for my future self, until recently, driven by ubiquitous social media marketing and content creation efforts of some of my friends and business partners, and many fellow bloggers and content creators, to professionalize my blog content. Maybe also for the sake of learning and improving search engine marketing.
Often, when sitting at my desk, I started to feel envy towards construction workers.
Not really. I don’t want to do their job, honestly, I doubt that I even could.
No Real Envy, but …
However, they do have jobs and projects. Unfinished business. Meanwhile, up at my desk, between marketing and procrastination, I don’t even feel like crafting quality content anymore. It’s more fun to ignore the rules and advice and just do automatic writing or whatever that’s called. This post is such a break of style. Oulipo and unfinished … was another example.
The most unprofitable and allegedly worthless thing to do is post anything about independent artists and make an effort giving credits. You might get 1 – 2 new followers, one like for each image or article, and that’s it. Algorithms don’t like long-tail content
I’m literally getting tired, by the way. Tired of a white-collar job questioned by AI and cost cuts, and tired after getting to bed too late and waking up much too early because of the construction workers’ daily standup. Why do they have to do the loudest work right at the start of their shift? Like can’t they clean up their paint buckets before closing time? It doesn’t matter much, though. When they are gone, there’s still the garbage collection, getting loud between seven and eight a.m. every other morning.
Cute Sandboxes vs. Ugly Architecture
Ironically, while construction sites are said to disturb harmony, many finished buildings don’t look any better, just more polished and lifeless. Dead cities, as I cited the band The Future Sound of London in my blog post about Light Walking at Night, a Fox in Berlin, and Cold Ray Photography. Unlike the “ugly duckling” who turns into an elegant swan, or the creeping caterpillar transforming into a flitting butterfly, construction sites buzzing of grown-up people getting dirty in the sand, turn into boring concrete deserts after the workers have left.
The ugly houses the singer Celentano attributed to Jeckyll and Hyde, are still standing. Since, many new ones were built. Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the finished one of the picture on the right. Maybe it turned out really nice. Anyway, if that’s your house, please don’t take it personally.
Many people adore construction sites. Kids play with toy dredgers, cranes and shovels in the sandbox. Adults pay admission to operate real machines in a life-size playground.
Are contruction site aesthetics the real urban art?
Construction Site Aesthetics and Acoustics
Do construction site aesthetics (and acustics) exist? Most likey not. Similarities there are: Barriers, flashing lights, red-and-white or yellow-and-black striped hazard tape. Signs. Tools. Workwear, like the one that some non-construction-workers like to wear as skate or leasure gear. Safety vests in striking neon colors, as they were also popular at techno parties at times. Safety shoes and boots that would also be ideal for festivals and rock concerts. Likewise, hearing protection.
We would describe the sound of construction sites in a similarly affectionate yet ironic way, much like the words of residents who love to party.: Pop banging, stirring, drilling, hammering, clattering and above all: shouting loudly. Foreign-language curses may be clichés, but without shouting, neither sports nor construction work seems possible.
Construction Site, Profession, Skilled Worker Paradox
Yes, this text is ironical, but with a true core of loving admiration.
Who is responsible when construction sites, when construction sites pester residents for years, only to deliver — belatedly and at excessive cost — something already obsolete. While I am writing these words, new offices and commercial properties are being built, even though so many are already standing empty and affordable housing is in short supply. Capitalism might have defeated socialism in historic terms, but bureaucracy and corruption exist in every system, and the market often handles things no better than the planned economy did.
Absurd and annoying, in times of AI and skilled labor shortage, wasting even a single minute creating and optimizing one’s own CV, while outside, in front of the window, day to day, month by month, from morning till late, the construction wokers are working full time. Conversely, they might think similarly about people like me. Why are people often paid so well to sit at a desk working with digital products, programming, and writing?
I really can’t hear all this “recruiters become suspicious” etc. anymore, by the way. Shortage of skilled workers? Lazy Germans not working hard enough? Then the application process must not fail due to perfectionism! Marketing and content creation neither! Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to complain; I want to take action. I am sitting at my desktop producing digital artifcats, while outside my window people are building something that stands visibly in the material world.
Contruction sites show the process that finished products hide. Why do we accept incompleteness in the cityscape, but not in creative work?
Have a look how beautifully damaged and uncovered the following paragraph allows a glimpse below the surface of what normally stays hidden to our eyes. Minimal viable products, so far, so good, but “under construction” ends up getting penalized. Algorithms and AI only like “authenticity”, when it doesn’t really get in their way.
So, do they like this as well?
<a href=”https://www.open-mind-culture.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/PXL_20260215_150407915-1-scaled.jpg”><img class=”wp-image-8014 ” src=”https://www.open-mind-culture.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/PXL_20260215_150407915-1-1024×768.jpg” alt=”A road turned sandbox” width=”404″ height=”303″ /></a> A road turned sandbox
How I like to play with seemingly broken web content!
Yeah, this site is “under construction!”
404, you know?
Muhahaha!
Who’s the Artist?
Here’s another image taken at last year`s annual Berlin Weissensee art academy exhibition (Rundgang 2025). Taken from a slightly different angle, you can see me standing in the background between the constructin work puppets, next to antoher, abstract, artwork reminding of a paper sketch of a steep staircase.
If you know who did it, please send me a message! I’d like to give credit.
Note that this post looks slightly broken on purpose.
